Police officer killed in bomb attack in Turkey's city of Gaziantep, 3 soldiers killed in armed attack in south-east

ISTANBUL (AFP/REUTERS) - A bomb exploded on Sunday (May 1) outside the police headquarters in the south-eastern Turkish city of Gaziantep close to the Syrian border, killing one policeman and wounding 13 other people, the local governor said, as another attack killed three soldiers in the country's south-east.

Gaziantep regional governor Ali Yerlikaya was quoted by Turkish media as saying nine of those wounded were police. NTV television said the explosion was caused by a car bomb and had been followed by sounds of gunfire.

Footage from CNN Turk broadcaster showed pieces of a wrecked vehicle near the station gates and several ambulances and fire brigade trucks at the scene of the blast, which it said was felt from kilometers away, while windows in nearby buildings were shattered.

Several ambulances and fire engines were at the scene of the blast, which a correspondent for the broadcaster said was felt across the city. Windows in nearby buildings were shattered. Gunfire was heard at the time of the explosion and a second car was reported to have been driven away from the scene, CNN Turk's correspondent said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Meanwhile, three Turkish soldiers were killed and 14 others were wounded on Sunday in an armed attack by Kurdish militants during a military operation in the south-eastern town of Nusaybin, Turkey's army said in a statement.

Turkey's largely Kurdish south-east has been hit by waves of violence in clashes between government security forces and members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) after a ceasefire fell apart last July.

Turkey is facing security threats on several fronts. As part of a United States-led coalition, it is fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and battling Kurdish PKK militants in its south-east, where a 2.5-year ceasefire collapsed last July, triggering the worst violence since the 1990s.

The province of Gaziantep, bordering ISIS-held Syrian territory, is home to a large Syrian refugee population and there have been multiple police raids on suspected ISIS militants there over the past months.

A wave of suicide bombings this year, including two in its largest city Istanbul, have been blamed on ISIS, and two in the capital Ankara were claimed by a Kurdish militant group.

Last week, a female suicide bomber blew herself up next to a mosque on a busy street in Turkey's fourth-largest city of Bursa, wounding eight people.

Turkey has also faced attacks from far-left groups, mostly on the police and security forces.

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